Detective Dalia Zaki quotes from Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026)

Detective Dalia Zaki

I wish I didn't have to show you what's on this tape. But it's very important you see what happened to Katie. [Plays tape and The Magician appears and sits on couch seat] This is the woman who kidnapped your daughter. [The Magician speaks and Dalia translates] "The dark signs have begun to show once more. Warning us that the time has come to recommit to the containment of our ancient family secret. This will be the 82nd mummification ritual. And as the first-born child, I am honored to carry this great responsibility of ensuring that our family will remain protected from the evil reach of the Nasmaranian. I commit this testament so that in decades to come, your children will know what they must do, when it is their time to transfer this demon from a spent vessel to a freshly prepared host. [The Magician gets up and leans into camera] An innocent child is best, as the bodies lasts longest, but any live human will do. Let us begin." [Tape changes to a scene of demon possession transfer ritual, with The Magician pulling hood off of Katie whimpering she wants to go home with Katie being hung up on a rack and lowered over an Egyptian mummy with a black smoke column shooting into Katie's mouth] That thing they put inside her was meant to stay buried and bound.

Detective Dalia Zaki

I appreciate your frustration but I cannot dispatch officers to arrest a monkey.

I'll just throw it down my well then!

Detective Dalia Zaki

No, I would not recommend you drown the monkey.

Fine, I'll just shoot it.

Officer Zaki, you speak good English, right? [Dalia nods]
...

Why do you want to join the missing persons department? Lose a cat when you were eight years old?

Detective Dalia Zaki

I'm allergic to cats.

You know, Officer Zaki, I've located one hundred and ninety-three people in twenty-seven years on this job. [opens door]

Detective Dalia Zaki

That's on average seven-point-one-four people you saved per year.

One hundred and ninety of them were dead. If you want to be promoted in this department, you should consider if facing that many corpses is an equation you can stomach. [goes in interview room]
...

This is her. This is just from a week ago.

Are they tourists?

Detective Dalia Zaki

Are you on vacation?

No, no. We live here. We've been living her for five months. He's a TV news correspondent.

Detective Dalia Zaki

They are here for work. He's a TV reporter.

I don't know his face.

Detective Dalia Zaki

When was the last time you saw Katie?

11 am, um... then I went to work, and... [to Charlie] you were at home with the kids. And that's it.

Detective Dalia Zaki

Mr. Cannon.

Charlie Cannon

About three pm.

Detective Dalia Zaki

The father was the last to see her.

Wait, I have these. Somebody, whoever took her, was giving these to her. [presents candy wrappers]

Detective Dalia Zaki

She says the girl was getting these as gifts. Sounds like she was being groomed.

Or they could be lying.

What is he saying? What is he saying?

Always start by looking in the family. They might have accidentally killed her and are trying to cover it up

Charlie Cannon

Hey. You think I don't know what you're talking about? [gestures to Larissa and himself] You think we did this?! You think we did something to our own daughter?! What the **** is your problem?! [bangs table up and down] Are you going to **** help us?! Send someone out there to find her! Somebody took our child!

Charlie Cannon

What is this?

Detective Dalia Zaki

It's a basalt sarcophagus. Between two and three thousand years old. Katie was being transported inside it when the plane crashed.

Charlie Cannon

What the **** was our daughter doing in a three-thousand-year old sarcophagus?

Detective Dalia Zaki

If you want to smuggle someone or even something in this country and avoid detection, the best place is our history. Blind eyes are turned to the illegal trade of artifacts. It's the perfect human trafficking cover.

I think we should get back upstairs to her.

Charlie Cannon

I remember you. You were there the day she got kidnapped. You had a working theory then too, didn't you? You thought I did something to her.

Detective Dalia Zaki

That was my senior officer's opinion.

Charlie, let's get back upstairs.

Charlie Cannon

And where's his expert opinion tonight?

Detective Dalia Zaki

Buried in Bab-al-Wazir Cemetery.

Charlie Cannon

Are you gonna do a better job of finding our daughter than he did?

Detective Dalia Zaki

Yes.

Detective Dalia Zaki

What the **** is happening on that tape? [Grabs Layla by shirt and hoists her up] **** speak! [Layla opens mouth to reveal semi-amputated tongue and Dalia recoils in horror] Who did this to you? The woman on the tape? Your mother?

I tried to tell the truth once, so she punished me.

Detective Dalia Zaki

What is the truth?

Katie is not supposed to be outside of the box. The valley, it's going to be flooded soon. My brothers had no choice but to move it, but it was never moved before.

Detective Dalia Zaki

What is it? [Layla makes a "I need to write it down gesture]

The Magician

You're late today. You must have taken enough of my blood to fill a swimming pool by now. I wish they would stop playing this music. It's giving me a headache.

You know my face. You remember my Katie, don't you? She wants to know if you'd like to see a trick.

Detective Dalia Zaki

I'm sure you remember what happens now. [Closes the door, begin chanting the ritual that will transfer Nasmaranian from Charlie to the Magician]